


Sleeping Beauty Awake (Austria's Story)

by ArchangelUnmei



Series: The Flautist's Fairytale [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Cold War, F/M, M/M, Music, WWII, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-02
Updated: 2010-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-11 10:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchangelUnmei/pseuds/ArchangelUnmei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Austria can remember from that time is the cold, and the flute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping Beauty Awake (Austria's Story)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired (as usual) by a prompt on the kink meme, which asked for Prussia as a flautist and Austria being turned on by classical music. That's what I set out to write. Really. And then it became this.

From 1938, when his government signs him into oblivion, until 1945, when the Allies restore him to partial sovereignty, Austria knows only darkness.  


Darkness and cold.  


He feels as though he's floating in an endless black sea, the coldness crushing him on all sides, and he is drowning without dying.  


After awhile, he notices the music.  


The music is never constant, not always there, but it always comes back. He begins to look forward to it, and the times in between seem more and more lonely.  


It's flute music, high and lilting, like water in a stream, like a bird soaring high over battle. The music is never tunes that he recognizes, and he concludes that his subconscious is beginning to go mad and is writing music to pass the time.  


Why the music manifests as a flute and not his beloved piano, he does not know.  


He learns from Hungary later that for most of that time, he was kept in the Third Reich's house, comatose on a bed of satin sheets. She hesitates, then tells him that it was his old enemy Prussia who looked after him during that time.  


Austria only scowls. "He probably just wanted the chance to gloat and pretend it was _him_ who finally defeated me."  


Hungary says nothing.  


~*~  


It is 1958 before he realizes that he can no longer hear the flute.  


He is attending the concert of a well known young flautist in Vienna, but he cannot seem to hear her play. He watches her fingers move over the keys, watches her chest rise and fall as she breathes in, breathes out. He can see the rapture and wonder on the faces of the other audience members as they listen to the undoubtedly beautiful music.  


But Austria cannot hear it.  


He performs tests as soon as he returns home. Piano, violin, viola, mandolin, lute, all are normal. It is only the flute.  


He wonders if his years in a state of unmaking perhaps did more damage than he thought.  


~*~  


In 1971, he is attending a conference in Berlin.  


He stays after most of the other nations have left, since he and Germany have not had a chance to talk in quite awhile. Italy is having tea with Belgium, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, so Austria and Germany bundle up in coats and scarves and walk down to the Wall.  


"We can't yell over it, you know." Germany sounds so sad, his head down against the wind. Austria wonders when he got so tall. "And we can't hear anything from the other side. Us, I mean. Nations. No one has heard from Russia in years, not even America. Even Poland's letters have stopped coming."  


While Austria is still trying to think of what to say, he realizes he is hearing music. He is sure it must be the wind, but something must show on his face because Germany gives him a grim smile.  


"You can hear it too, can't you? None of the humans do. It's the only sound from Nations that can cross the Wall, it seems."  


"It's a flute," Austria's voice is hushed, as though voicing the truth will make the sound disappear.  


Germany nods, looking up at the cold, graffiti-covered Wall. "It's my bruder."  


"What?" Austria looks at him sharply, hands clenching into tight fists. "I thought he-"  


"Prussia is no more," Germany agrees, still watching the Wall. "He is East Germany now, or Königsberg. I don't know where Russia has put him on the map. But that is him. When I was younger, he would always play the flute for me when I could not sleep. He comes every day and plays here, I think he knows that I listen."  


Austria has to agree. It would be just like Prussia to do something like this, a stunt only he could manage to pull off.  


~*~  


1979.  


Another concert.  


The only flute Austria can hear is the one on the other side of the Wall.  


~*~  


He does not go to Berlin in 1989.  


America will be there, he knows, and England and France, and Germany of course. Hungary is going, but Austria declines. He watches the celebrations on television instead, but becomes annoyed and turns it off when he finds himself searching in vain for white hair and red eyes among the crowds.  


He goes to his music room instead, plays Beethoven and Brahms late into the night and loses all track of time. He doesn't realize why until the flute comes in above the piano, and it dawns on him that he was waiting for that to happen.  


He doesn't bother to finish the song, just does something he hardly ever does and cuts off in the middle with an angry clash of keys, swinging around on the piano bench.  


He's leaning in through the open window, up to his knees in roses and pansies outside. A silver flute hangs from one hand and his clothes are worn and tattered, a far cry from the armor and frock coats of long ago. But the smirk is the same, and those damnable eyes that Austria had never realized how much he missed until just now.  


He wants to say a million things, but he presses his lips tightly together and says none of them as he - Prussia, East Germany, whoever he is now - pulls himself up over the windowsill and into the room.  


It isn't until he's standing there, Austria staring up at him from his place on the piano bench, that Austria finally finds the right words.  


"You never told me you played the flute." His tone is accusatory, but the other's smirk never wavers.  


"Old Fritz taught me, a long time ago," he leans down, eyes oddly serious as he takes Austria's chin in his hand. Austria bristles and tries to pull back, but he won't let him. "I had to play for you," he continues, laying his flute on top of the piano so he can thread his other hand in Austria's hair.  


"A kiss wasn't enough to wake up Sleeping Beauty."  


~*~  


**Historical Notes:**

You know you've written a Hetalia fic when your notes are longer than the fic...  


**Anschluss:** In 1938, Austria was annexed into the German Third Reich and ceased to exist as an independent nation. After the end of WWII in 1945, the Allies restores Austria's power legally, though it wasn't until 1955 that Austria regained complete, independent sovereignty. My headcanon is that Austria was comatose during those years.  


**Königsberg:** A city in what is now the Kalingrad Oblast, in Russia. Historically, it was founded by the Teutonic Knights and was the capital city of East Prussia for hundreds of years. Some Hetalia fans who don't want Prussia to carry over as East Germany make him into Kalingrad instead. The city was renamed in 1946, but it would stand that Germany probably wouldn't acknowledge the Soviet renaming.  


**Berlin, 1989:** In November, 1989, there was growing unrest in East Germany and East Berlin. To try and avoid full scale rioting, the East German government announced that citizens of East Germany and East Berlin could once again visit West Germany and West Berlin. Germany wasn't formally reunified until 1990.  


**Beethoven and Brahms:** Both famous German composers  


**"Old Fritz taught me":** King Fredrick II of Prussia (aka, "Old Fritz") played the flute, and composed quite a lot of music for it.  



End file.
